Mehdi Karroubi has reportedly written an open letter to Iranian President Hassan Rohani calling on him to compel the establishment to comply with the Article 168 of the Constitution and give him his day in court.
Karroubi, who has been under house arrest since February of 2011 for challenging the 2011 elections and triggering mass protests, refers to the establishment as “despotic” and says he will reveal in court “how the children of the country have been treated in prison”.
He adds that he does not ask for the president to secure his release because he is aware that it is not in his powers to do so; however, he urges Rohani to give him his day in court and a chance to defend his allegations of “fraud in the 2009 presidential elections and what the children of the country suffered in the legal and illegal detention centres.”
The letter comes as a reaction to the most recent statements of Iran’s Supreme Leader regarding the latest elections in the country, in which Ayatollah Khamenei favourites Yazdi and Mesbah did not earn the necessary votes to join the Assembly of Experts and almost all of the candidates endorsed by reformists got in.
Khamaeni said the behaviour of the two defeated members of the clergy was noble and the behaviour of those who lost in 2009 was indecent.
Karroubi writes that his testimony in court will reveal the “true indecent elements” in the system.
Karroubi became a whistleblower for the extremely abusive treatment of prisoners in detention centres following the 2009 protests leading to the Kahrizak scandal, in which the revelation of abuses and even the death of prisoners under torture finally forced the hand of the authorities to shut down the centre.
